Tell Me I'm Here

In the 1970s and into the 1980s, before communities were ready with services to cope with demand, deinstitutionalisation was carried out in the mental health area. These resulted in the neglect of people with severe mental health issues, leading to homelessness, abuse of medications, and even gaol.   

Anne Deveson’s son, Jonathan, fell ill with a mental illness during these years. In her book, ‘Tell Me I’m Here’, she describes what it was like as a mother to have a child descend into madness during those times. She was unable to find help, or even a diagnosis for many years. , and many of them had side-effects. One doctor said it was schizophrenia, and another declared there was no such thing! When Jonathan became violent, her only option was to call the police, who often did not come, or when they eventually did, Jonathan had calmed down. A coercive intervention was not possible, and Anne bounced from one doctor to another, seeking help that was not available.

After revealing many of these and similar events, Anne writes, ‘I felt as if this was some monstrous endurance test, which would never end.’

We come to know both Anne and Jonathan as they live with and alongside mental illness. Anne shows her son as more than his illness. He is intelligent, playful, funny and tender. We see Anne as more than the public writer, researcher and broadcaster we knew. She is first and foremost a mother, with three children, one of whom needs her help. She loves her son, and he loves “Anne’ as he calls her, but there are times Jonathan sees his mother, as ‘the devil’, and these are the times he tries to harm her.

As one who had some experience of the lack of help with mental health issues in the 1970s, I understood a little of what Anne faced. It would not have been easy for her to write this book. At one point, well into the book, she says, ‘I do not want to write this book. I find it painful. It scratches old wounds so they have no chance to heal. I am sick of the word “schizophrenia”. I am sick of madness.’

In 2007, Anne wrote an afterword to her book, mentioning the improvements and treatments for schizophrenia. However, it remains one of the most serious of the mental illnesses and one that would be hard for any family member to bear, along with the sufferers.